Petits Haricots

Oh dear, dozed off on the sofa, now I’ve woken up I of course don’t feel ready to go to bed. So might as well do the blogging I meant to do earlier.

Beautiful sunny morning, both the girls were up with us before Helen had to head off to work, sadly for another 24 hours shift, see you in the morning love Stringbean was keen to do ’some making’ and keen to raid the craft cupboard. But agreed with my suggestion of breakfast first. So yet another bowl of Cocopops (she will need to go cold turkey when this box is finished) was consumed.

SB then launched into a pianting, cutting and sticking fest. Doing some painting in one of her colouring books, making another ‘robot’ out of an old egg box, and i’m not sure what else exactly as I was giving BB her breakkie, getting her changed etc. She was a bit disappointed to have put some purple glue on top , to be told that it would turn clear once it dried. She has got a lot better at at concieving a plan of action and carrying it out, she had described most of what she was going to do to make a robot before she started.

This seemed to take up the first part of the morning until BB went for her nap by 10am. Resisting the temptation to stay on the bed and listen to R4, I returned to SB and made coffee, she moved onto an old issue of one of the BBC kiddies magazines which she worked her way through, we read all the stories, the spot the differences, and various puzzzles, and then made the Dora game that was in part of it. Though we never got round to playing it.

BB woke up and while I got her and played with her a bit SB took herself off to the playroom and spent ages again playing with the Connect 4 making patterns witht he pieces. Then we tidied up the kitchen bit and had lunch. SB was very good at feeding BB her lunch while I got ours ready.

After lunch we headed into the garden, though it was so hot we decided it was best moslty just to flop. SB helped me concrete in the base for the whirlygig washing line (at last). By then we needed a nice cold drink, so cold iced drinks for us, while BB enjoyed playing and sucking on ice cubes. Had meant to shift the heaps of greenery left over from work at the weekend but decide to sit in the shade and read a few books , and play games with BB instead.

Ahh, BB calls, time for bed I guess, we did have good mathsy workbook session before bedtime though.

wore whole musing on ed philosophy and lost by webmarshall suspecting gambling

Told Stringbean today that Mery and the girls should be coming round tomorrow. ‘Oh good’ she said, ‘I can tell them we have Ribena’………

Err, ok, must be an important topic……..

I love kids heads, sometimes you think you know what’s goign on in there and then other times you realise that they see the world in different way sometimes.

She obviously decided that it would be important to your crew that we have some Merry .

whilst pruning and training, thought of the trees we might remove
pic 1
pic2

we have plenty of tres, so not too awful an idea, and we are planning to put in loads of fruit - although mostly trained forms, so a net gain. We are in a conservation area, so not sure how that would go down

My parents visited- which was nice. except that I was on duty for 48 hours of it!! [and manically busy]

When I got home yesterday we had a very lazy and relaxed garden day. read SB lots of books [ and I think mum read bookcases full the day before] fed and giggled with BB and generally just chilled.

SB did still do a fair number of maths workbooks pages, jigsaws, counting games [ludo, snakes and ladders etc], matching games [dominos and memory cards and snap] colouring and drawing and writing her name on all the muddlepuddle postcards. She’s getting the names of the continents from the globe, a lovely jigsaw or 2 and a new DK globe game which is like snakes and ladders, put a plane flying round the globe and getting sidetracked.

today we nipped to the garden centre and SB fell in love with a shed-house [ and me with a potting shed] we have done lots of gardening - pruning and weeding mainly. Much chilling and reading again. SB still having fun with patterns - this time connect 4, also reinforcing the 6 number bonds [which she clearly knows]. lots of just playing and imagination.

edit - forgot that we started another crystal experiment - time to buy in bulk!

Rather fun, we turned the garden sunshade into a den with prunings. we did weave some through, but SB was so enthusiastic that by the time photos taken, it was semi-rutus [?sp] but i like the word. We found lots of shield bugs on the branches to look in the bugfinder as well. tied in nicely with the new DK insects book I had ebayed….

SB sad as at new nursery, everyone left to start school, so she is starting again. She was very philosophical about it with Mum - which tugged my heartstrings a bit. I do think SB would prob love much of school, but I would hate it to crush her SB-ness!

I will prob come back to this and re-edit a number of times. However, shal start as a mind-dump.

Although I don’t worry about socialisation as in the skill of being able to socialise and interact with peers, and I’m not convinced school is the best place to learn about being sociable, I am very keen to make sure that SB has plenty of opportunities to make friends, and see them regularly. I am prob a somewhat antisocial bugger - due to inability to learn social niceties at school - but am going to grad dip toes into local wed meets. I think if chris not working, he may do the fri pm. if he is, I may occais. get to do it instead [work rostas permitting]

added 1:I do worry that if we don’t get it right she will have the same difficulties as me. I also worry that she will regret/resent as she grows older the lack of friends and confidantes if we don’t get it right. i also worry that after school clubs not well suited to friend making - though if she goes to rainbows and ballet in the village, maybe there will be others doing both. At least if we try to be active or at least attend a certain number of home ed events we may have a better chance of a circle of friends - its a shame none are particularly close to get to.

More realistically, I would like to have an open house for home-edding families travelling around the country to drop by at - so take this as an invite. [although we aren’t the most exciting of the home-ed community, and our housekeeping record one of worst on blogring]

I have hit the limit for flikr with 2 days to go [in fact had to take 4 photos out!]
What will we do????

I’ve just bought (well put down the deposit) one of these, for me and Stringbean

No we can’t really afford it right now, but the bikeshop was selling it significantly reduced as he has had it in stock since the beginning of the summer and wanted shot of it really. Pretty cheap, and nothing fancy for a tandem, but for the tootling about we will do it should be fine. With BB hitched up behind in the trailer, should look good.

96% being the amount of our Flickr 2GB monthly upload allowance we (moslty H) have got through so far……. (Not I hasten to add all taken this month)

The whole tagging/sets etc. thing has really appealled to Helen’s organising/list making tendencies

i’m not sure i can bear even one more night of multiple feeds. BB not slept properly since we moved, and I am truly shattered. Have gone so far as to buy tin of formula, but not managed to bear to use it.

i feel such a failure for even considering bailing out, but if I could get some sleep at night, maybe I would have a bit more perspective and not be knocked about by every passing squall.

Our flikr importr playing up - in fact sitting to the front of this posting, so I am just hoping the spelling etc better than usual.

Antoher parcel day from the great ebay book hunt - DK picturepedia set of 12 - fantabulous!! So we started with the dinosaur one straight away. Also the DK eyewitness native american.

We had a rush on to get out, as driving to Norfolk - never the easiest of destinations , to see little Nanny and Aunty Peggy. Aunty Margaret was also there. the drive wasn’t so bad - for a change. Little Nanny welcomed us at the door, and is walking ever so much better - even if mostly with a frame. She has lost over a stone in a month, and I didn’t have many empty cartons returned, so told her to do better for next time.

We had a nice time, it was raining, and SB really needed to rampage around, so i was a bit stressed, as Nanny’s house full of treasured fragile ornaments. Mostly kept under control with workbooks, reading and distraction, though a few words were had on and off. BB also a bit uneasy, so perhaps making me tighter with SB. She did showcase her new ability to pull herself up to her feet and look very smug.

Aunty Peggy and Uncle Robert came round. She is looking so different - steroid effect mostly, but also tremendously aged. She did well though, getting SB’s name right and BB and talking sensibly to them. You can see her body as giving up though, weeping sores up and down legs, and terribly bruised arms [again probably steroids]. Although she has brain mets, and they were obviously effecting her - as not the Aunty Peggy of 6 months ago, enough of her was the same so that I felt I could say a real goodbye in my heart to a woman I have seen as an extra grandparent all my life. It is hard to predict when the sands will have stopped flowing, but not long it seems. since my Aunt noticed a dramatic deterioration even from 2 weeks ago, i’m not going to kid myself that even if I get to see her again that she will be anywhere near herself. This really is a year of loss in our family, and I just don’t have my usual strength to manage. They [as in with Uncle Robert] popped by only briefly, and even that was a strain for her.

SB and Nanny enjoyed cutting up runners to go with the pasta bake I had brought for tea, Aunty Margaret played with BB, and I was domestic. It was nice seeing Aunty Margaret again, as we met so often in Leeds. Also nice seeing Nanny approaching her old self. Though she is obviously frail, and more frightened about the future. Managing for now, though I worry about the winter, and she doesn’t actually get out of the house.

Fantastic cloud formation on the way home. Poor photo as had to wait for a layby, and wasn’t as good by then.

Esp bad as this started yesterday, but then I stopped to go to bed…… Can’t be bothered to edit it to reflect the correct tense though.

Helen was chatting to Jax on the phone earlier an complaining that she’s no idea what me and the girls are doing half the time becuase I’ve not been blogging - sorry, did someone mention something about talking… ;_) . I did find I was out of the blog reading/writing thing once we went to Copenhagen, so better write something……

So on to today. Well it rained most of the time it seemed, so little incentive to go out, so forgot to go and walk the short distance to get an appointment for SB to get her hair cut as it’s not been cut since before we moved and is annoying her (actually it’s ditto for me as well, but I don’t like ladies hairdressers , even when they say unisex ‘cos there is nothing else in the village, ‘proper’ barbers me). so a pottering sort of day really.

Once Helen was off to work and both girsl unusally were up and awake, we sat and generally played for a bit as BB wasn’t awake enough to be put down happily.

Headed off to the kitchen for breakfast, gave BB a couple of wooden spoons to entertain herself with, and so of course SB had to join in to. After her breakfast, feeling a bit crafty, SB dragged some bits out of the craft cupboard and started gluing and sticking. She found little Flower Fairies bag and wanted to decorate it for mummy. So she occupied herself for sometime with that, with just a bit of help now and again, mostly on strategic glue placement, while I continued with BB’s breakfast and mine, washed up and other kitcheny domestic tasks. The two Fairies on the bag are SB and BB apparently,and they are hiding. The craft table from the utility room is still out in the garden and hence was very wet so she did it on the kitchen table so we ended up with glitter etc. stuck to table as the newspaper had been forgotten. (re glitter, I bet the owners of our old house still vacuum up glitter …..)

Back of into the playroom where SB dragged out some books and ‘match and sort’ - aka workbooks of various sorts - moslty maths. We sat and did some reading, and various bits from the workbooks. she did quite few bits of various activities around of number bonds, more than/less than, simple subtraction and addition. She is pretty proficient at these now, what she doesn’t like is having to write down the numbers too much as she isn’t very good at that yet, though she can write them mostly pretty cleary if she wants to. Next step for numbers with her will probably be the whole tens/units thing. We come across it few times now. But it’s something she isn’t ready for yet.

When the postie came, laden down again with various Ebay parcels, - I bet she is glad we are near the start of her round - she also brought a package for SB from my Mum and Dad. A magazine thing and a couple of quid to spend. Magazine kept her happy for ages. It came with little toy of a few little toy pigs and things which she played with on and off all day - including complicated game that lost me involving her little ‘Baby Annabel’ dolly. Spent a fair while reading the stories, helping her with the various puzzles etc. she did very well at writing the answers in on the little crossword thingy on the back. She does like writing, I think she is probably ready to be introduced to something bit structured regarding it, so just as well Helen has order Getty Dubay from Sonlight - by ’slowpost’ so who knows when it will come. I’ve been pointing out the little arrows they often put on the outlined letters to indicate the way to draw them , and she does seem to finally be taking notice of them now, which will probably help her produce better formed letters.

Semmed to be some other things happening, but my mind is bit blank BB was of course around and joining in when when felt like it. Usualy when SB wanted to play with somethign without BB grabbing everything. She keeps on looking like she might crawl, but then just does the ‘extendable arm ‘ thing they do when they manage to reach all sort of things that you thought were out of reach. She also does the ‘how did they move over there - I never saw them move’ bottom shuffle thing that Josie was so good at. She loves standing though, nursey comemnted on it the other day. And likes now to walk bit if you hold her hand, I think she will be walker first like her big Sis at this rate. She does go backwards on her belly quite proficiently though. SB does love her to bits though and is generally so considerate of her, and loves to help wioth her. She does this shouting/screamy thing to her, which really gets on the parents nerves, esp. late on in the day, but BB loves it usually, bursting out in great smiles and chuckles, which of course just encourages SB……….

Helen came home so she had some time with the girls while I whatever boring doemstic tasks it was that I did.

Had pre-bedtime spurt of Miquon maths. SB had got it out earlier, but the childrens materials book is just a lot of pages of actvities with no explaination. some is obvious, some you aren’t sure quite what is expected. But The accompanying ‘Teacher guide’ thing has lots of explaination and suggestions etc. It’s approach in many ways seems quite different so this is useful. So I’d put it off earlier, but we went ahead this time and she did a few bits. It has some good things to do with using the Cuisinare rods. SB is really gettting the grasp of these now understanding how you can use them to represent a number, and how the different sizes relate to one another.Seemed a shame to stop her, but we did want her off to bed

So, Tuesday

When Helen had gone to work BB was up but SB was still in bed, so me and BB had a nice bit of one to one time, and I could dangle her upside down (which she loves) and generally play around with her without Helen worrying that I am goign to drop her or hit her on the ceiling or some such. SB came down after abit, I think she’d been up in her room playing tea parties with her cuddlies, she brought basket of them down for her and BB to play with , ahhh So we played for bit and then got around to breakfast eventually, having a bit of pop out the front to watch the workmen resurfacing the pavement. Intending to go to the library later we sorted out the books to take back/renew and actually picked a couple so we could get our first stickers etc. for the Reading Voyage thing (ermm we seem to have been a bit slow on the uptake her….) so of course we had to re read most of them. I tried to spark bit of dicussion as to why she liked some books rather than others, and what were the best bits, which was moderately successful, esp. the latter aspect. The Muddlepuddle bookbags have been successfukl anyway in helping keep out library books altogether. We actually managed to take all the books back in one go

Anyway, it was sunny, SB was into workbook mode now, BB wanted milk, I wanted coffee. So we decamped outside with workbooks, milk, and a nice cafetiere of coffee and sat at the patio table. While BB fed and dozed off me and SB looked at the books. She had bought out the miqon one again, but the bits she wanted to do required me to explain some things to her and she didn’t really want that, so we did one of the other simpler more general maths type ones. She is getting the idea now of number lines. They had one of those in the book, went onto the discussion of numbers beyond 9, drifted into the ’10’s’ and counting up in tens. once we got to about 50- or 60 she was able to write down 70, 80 etc. herself. Showed her what 100 (and palyed around with the idea of it being called ‘ tenty’) and 200 was written like and then she could do the rest of the ‘100’s. talked about how many noughts 1000, 100, 000, 1,000,000 etc. had which she found quite exciting. BB got packed of to the bedroom, and I wanted to sort outthe tomatoes in the greenhouse which have been neglected and look very unhappy. She was goign to help, but decidedd the GH was too hot, so got a cane and went to play. she was goign to be fishing, but I soon heard her ‘killing’ the towels hanging on the line…..

When she finsished her games she wanted me to do something wqith her, but i wanted to finsih, so she got a couple more workbooks She went onto a couple of basic science and ‘opposites’ ones. Simple stuff really for her, but if she likes doing it fine by me. One spread was about animals living in different habitats - cold places and hot places, the cold palce had Polar bears, and Eskimo, seals and Penguins. Now this is a bit of thing of mine, so many kids books show penguins and polar bears together living in the same place [I assume dear readers that you all know they don’t…….. ] Now okay story books etc. I’ll let them off (grudgingly) but books which are supposed to be about ‘Science’ - Grrrrrrrr!!!!!! This idea is so prevaent that I find kids in a school of 11, 12, 13 etc. not realising this.

So anyway, we had bit of discussion about this, looked at the globe to see where the Arctic and Antarctic were etc. Short diversion into why they were the coldest bits (which no doubt lost her mostly, but I am endl;essy surprised by which bits stick, so persist in popping bits into the conversations.)and so why maybe the didn’t travel to the other poles etc.

So SB sat doing these while I finished in the GH and chopped down various bits of overgrown tree until BB woke up and called us to lunch bit of blackhole here, as we didn’t get out to go to the library until getting on for 4 pm, but can’t quite think what happened in between. Did spend some time upstairs with BB rolling about sans nappy, while I put clean nappies and clothes away ‘ably assisted’?? by SB.

Nice visit to the library, renewed some books, got her Reading Voyage bits done, sat and read a few things, enterntained people by being dressed in her fairy outfit got some new books. Came home via the church yard so had to stop and read lots of grave stones and the hairdressers to make an appointment for SB who hasn’t had a cut since before we moved. Home to make a rather nice cous cous thing (SB loves cous cous) for dinner, SB did a good job of cutting up the Runner Beans. Helen home a lateish as usual for Tuesday, more ebay parcels to open. A nice DK game which they played a couple of times while I finished diner preps.

BB was with me in the kitchen on the floor while I did this, she started off miles away from the the ‘to compost’ bucket but unoticed by me shuffled across and started rummaging. When I noticed she had a n apricot that had started to rot in one hand stuffed in her mouth and a bit of green potatoes in the other.

Dinner, small people to sleep, coffee, ahhh………

Some thoughts/ponderings are bobbing around in my head, but that will have to wait.

A few piccies (not esp. good) are of course on flickr

on things I can’t change.
reading Jax made me howl over things I can’t change, so nipped to Ros to remind me not to obsess.

It obviously isn’t getting particularly easier

Or at least seems to in our house. Got home from work to find maths type books - singapore and miquon liberally scattered over the floor, a magazine from nanna f as well, where she had written out a crossword, and filled in lots of puzzles.

I think SB going through a very dynamic autonomous era at the present, and really diving into learning spontaneously. Oddly, it makes me feel even more disorganised that I haven’t got things at my fingertips for her. Writing and maths are the flavour to savour, though a lot of read aloud history and stories going on. The usborne farm series are proving to be a bit of a hit, with SB just quoting the first page. Certainly a lot of processing is happening.

Through ebay got lots of books coming through in a steady stream, so looked at the usborne through the ages homes and houses, and also barefoot animal stories from around the world [4 of] which we do a fair bit of talking around - geography, beliefs etc. Am trying to have a rest a bit on beliefs, as noticed when swimming that SB said of the life guard to herself ’she has a cross, she must be a christian’ and felt that this was seeming a bit labelling, and don’t want her to think she has to attatch a label to herself. Sticking to gods and goddesses as plurality therefore, and mostly ancient. Science also a bit of a back burner - Chris has loads of Krampf experiments tucked away, and I really need to get a resource box organised so that we can experiment like mad [sb likes!]

After tea she was again desperate to do some miquon with the cuisinaire rods [which for a year I wondered why I bought them, and now I know!] and was not keen to go to bed until she’d finished a page… and another one!

I used to read the autonomous ‘trust to the process’ type posts, and panic and have deep suspicions, but I see it in action, and it is working. However, I am a queen of listmakers, and somewhere high on the anal retentiveness scale [a former boss recurrently threatened to list me for an anal stretch], so I think Chris and I need to come to agreement on recording the broad brushes of home ed, and perhaps develop my ideas for a broad brush story arc for things such as history, with points for incorporating geography along the way.

Basically trying to predict tangents to go down, and facillitating the resources rather than ‘today we are looking at france’ type arrangements! lso with the piano in another room, we are forgetting about it [like the tv] so I want some kind of game that we draw cards for activities [games, music, crafts, experiments as well as a few readers/workbooks] and then do them [cheating allowed so actually get one she wants to do!] at those lulls, so that it again sparks off using some of the hidden away resources.

Also Chris needs to BLOG! After all, this is his blog [and the flikr is his account too, that I seem to have overtaken. born to organise, thas me!]. cos when she is 5, i want to start some way of recording what we do as we do it with comments on the other things you notice - like increased attention span, and processing info thoughts etc. Like Jan, so that if ever we become known to PTB [and this area strong on that, so anticipate it will be near instantaneous] we can at least be confident in our body of evidence - even if we decline to show it.

Other ponderings, I think i’ve swapped my desires from an eglu to a swallow now where is that fairy godmother???

Just now! not shuffles, but holding my hands walked towards daddy and then he took over - the full works - voluntary lifting of feet and moving them forwards in a purposeful manner! She was very proud of herself.

Had contemplated going to Norfolk today, but instead we are going next Wed.

got up - reluctantly! And immediately had to build specific lego house - the client was a particularly demanding one! Some relief came when we went swimming. SB still doing the drowning dog stroke - but I am working on confidence to try other things! She is very confident at launching of the side - nearly a sitting dive to be honest, and then carrying on swimming. She also likes to do dolphin ducks under and over. BB also loves the water, and kicks and splashes wildly, with careful preparation she can float on her back - but for a few seconds only, as she then tries to turn over and sinks.

On the way home we picked up some more fresh plums, sweetcorn and runner beans from various stalls on the road. Talked with the somewhere in 80’s no doubt plum lady about the village and changes, and my desire for an orchard. She says I can walk the children round it whenever I like [5 acres]. I know, and orchard and chickens - must have watched the good life once too often. [partic if you look at our veg bed photos on flikr - oops, but has been productive, despite the weeds]

More lego, and then we decided to read the castle flip book and make our own - which we did. A minor contretemps as SB had spotted a roman house kit from DK which i will put aside for a couple of years, and really wanted to build that instead. Anyway, a lovely castle from loo rolls was made and painted [crafts]. I was pleased to have done it, as going through old photos, we seemed to do a lot of arts and crafts, and this really has slowed down a lot - due to lack of planning by me I suspect.

Some story reading - including Ulysses by Usborne, and the she helped me make pasta bake for tea - so some to freeze again for little Nanny. SB has got over courgettes now, as it contained those and fennel, red peppers alll chopped but visible. Still whizzed the mushrooms and onions though. Also pine nuts and olives. yummy!

Chris putting SB to bed, as I’ve got to do this major talk for work [still!], and BB burbling at my feet. Chris has done some slashing to the overgrowth in the veg beds this afternoon - good man.

By this All your fault June and Joanna!!

These are best viewed larger on flikr, but does highlight that they are out of focus. I tried a few different settings, but at max zoom, I just don’t think the camera was up for it. gives a good impression of how magical it was though.